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The online community, run by veteran econ journalist Luis Nassif, brings up topics other media outlets generally do not and attracts knowledgeable persons to comment about them.

Today, the news — the report is from the Estado de S. Paulo — is that Dilma Pena, a former state secretary of sanitation and energy under São Paulo governor José Serra, will replace Gesner de Oliveira at the helm of Sabesp — the internationally listed public-private sanitation services and technolog company responsible for sewers and drinking water here.

Gesner was once Nassif’s fellow economics columnist at the Folha de S. Paulo. What a lovely thing it is, to head a company and be the journalist assigned to cover matters of interest to it at the same time. To be fair, however, Gesner quit his job with the Folha before assuming Sabesp.

Weirdly,

Gesner announced his departure on Twitter, information later confirmed by the office of governor Geraldo Alckmin..

The choice of Pena was both technical and political in nature: a specialist in sanitation and water resources,, Dilma Pena wokred for José Serra during his tenure as governor and his time as federal planning minister. With the nomination Alckmin demonstrates a willingness to call a truce with disgruntled Serra supporters in the urrent state government.

Blogging resolutions for 2011 — our last year one earth before the cataclysm of 2012, according to the Discovery Channel, which has devolved from the premier “science is cool” channel into a 24-7 “Nostradamus might be right” channel.